Fast X11 forwarding

remote desktopx11-forwarding

I am using ssh -X to display GUI apps locally.
Is there a better way to speedup this processes – something similar what NoMachine Nx server / client does?

Thanks, Mariusz.

Best Answer

If you add the -C option to ssh, you'll compress the data prior to encrypting it. Depending on the speed of your connection and, I suppose, on the speed of your CPU, this can make a difference. Back in the old days of dial-up modems, it made a huge difference, and I've seen it make a measurable difference on cable modems running VMWare Workstation from a remote X client. Your mileage may vary.

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Linux – X11 forwarding doesn’t work with multiple tmux sessions

Not 100% sure it'll work for you, but that link didn't work for me either and I just copied the DISPLAY variable from the initial terminal and wrote export DISPLAY=${copied from outside tmux} which worked fine - i.e.

log in ...
echo $DISPLAY # remember this
tmux a
export DISPLAY=${variable from memory}

the function from that link gave me a completely different DISPLAY which didn't work

Faster SSH/x11 forwarding w/o installing software on the server

Tunneling X11 through ssh is quite bandwidth expensive and the X protocol is not ideal for high RTT links. You may simply not have enough bandwidth, or too much latency, for it to be usable.

You seem to have already narrowed down the options you have:

options needing you to install software on both ends (either an X protocol optimizer such as x2go, FreeNX or others, or using another protocol than X over SSH such as VNC or Remote Desktop)
using compression (or not, it should be better with but try both): option -C
using a less expensive cipher protocol such as BlowFish-CBC or arcfour (the second is less secure): add option -c blowfish-cbc

The only one you seem to have missed is if your X program is Firefox, in which case it seems that setting network.http.pipelining and using ssh multiplexing could make a difference.

Best Answer

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Linux – X11 forwarding doesn’t work with multiple tmux sessions

Faster SSH/x11 forwarding w/o installing software on the server

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